For many, traveling is a common and often necessary part of their personal or professional lives. For these people, and many others, technology has greatly improved their ability to stay in touch with others and to conduct business without having to be physically located in their home or office. As an example, laptop computers (“laptops”) have enabled people to work while sitting in an airport or hotel room, or even while riding on an airplane. The size and portability of laptops is a convenience that allows people access to important documents, spreadsheets, presentations, schedules, electronic mail (“email”), and contact information essentially anywhere that a laptop may be carried.
However, laptops also have certain limitations. Laptops consume power that is provided by either a power cord plugged into a power source or a battery. When a power source is not available, which is often the case on an airplane for example, the applications and data are only available to the user for a limited period of time defined by the size of the battery used. Additionally, while laptops offer people convenient access to applications and application data while traveling, laptops can be cumbersome when quick access to data is all that is required. For example, if a businessman is at an airport and needs quick access to a spreadsheet or an email located on the laptop, he typically has to open a carrying case, remove the laptop, open the display, turn the power on, wait for the laptop operating system to boot, open the desired application, access the desired data, close the application, initiate shut down, wait for the computer to turn off, close the display, return the laptop to the carrying case, and close the case. This can be a time-consuming and burdensome process for someone that is in a crowded location or is in a hurry.
Several devices are available that allow a person access to information on a laptop without the necessity of following the entire burdensome procedure outlined above. First, there are cellular telephones and other portable devices that allow a user access to email, calendar information, and other applications on the laptop using the portable device. Additionally, synchronizing software allows a user to upload user-selected data to the portable device. After synchronization, the user is able to access data that is up-to-date as of the time that the personal device was synchronized. However, any emails or other information received or updated on the computer after the synchronization will not be accessible to the user. These solutions using short-range communication links such as BLUETOOTH require that the computer remain in a powered-on state, something that is not often convenient for the reasons discussed above.
An additional problem associated with many wireless computing devices is that the devices often cannot handle demanding computing tasks such as displaying complex web pages. Cellular telephones, for example, have very small screens that require information on complex web pages, spreadsheets, or other documents to be displayed in a format that is useful to the user. Doing so requires processing that a cellular telephone may not be able to efficiently accomplish in order to provide the user with rapid retrieval and display of the requested information. Moreover, there are wireless devices that provide real-time email and data but do so over a public network, presenting security concerns and often requiring costly service agreements.
It is with respect to these considerations and others that the various embodiments of the invention have been made.